Normally I frown on this sort of thing, but my current copy of Memory and Destiny has some sound issues, like it's a bit too muddled, and possibly even too digitally compressed. I'll be getting this for sure, since musically it's one of my favorite post-Capricornus Graveland releases. I'm also looking forward to getting this badass sweatshirt in the mail:

This was my favorite Graveland release. Darken didn't like the reception so went for muddier production with forthcoming Graveland albums. I loved those albums but felt there was some missed potential. Fortunately Summoning picked up on them. Oath Bound scratched every itch I had from Memory an Destiny.

The muddy sound and bland vocals have driven me from every post Memory ans Destiny release. What makes Will Stronger Than Death tolerable is actually the forcefulness and power of the drums. But the incessant uuuuuggggg wuuuuuuuuggg of the vocals drags the entire experience down.

I honestly rather enjoy the "monotonous" aspects of the newer Graveland stuff. I think it forces the listener to pay less attention to aesthetic concerns and more to the songwriting/composition. I can definitely see your side of it, though; I didn't particularly care for Spears of Heaven, and none of the albums released between Creed of Iron and Fire Chariot of Destruction particularly grabbed me (admittedly, I didn't investigate them too thoroughly). Cold Winter Blades and Will Stronger Than Death are up there with his classic mid '90s stuff, though. Cold Winter Blades in particular grabbed me with its excellent synthesis of the folky/classical stuff of Lord Wind with the reinvigorated black metal-isms that reared their head from Fire Chariot onwards.

I got the new version of Memory and Destiny in the mail a couple days ago, and after listening to it all the way through a few times, I'd put it up there with the (paltry few, to be sure) black metal classics of the '00s. He balanced out the volume levels a lot more, so you can clearly differentiate what layer of music is doing what. That's not to say he's "brickwalled" it in the mastering process; the output volume is very low (especially for a newer album), and the production is very dynamic-sounding. It actually reminds me a bit of the production overhaul that took place between Altars of Madness and Blessed Are the Sick. He's opened up more layers of counterpoint by adding in new fiddle and synth melodies redolent of the previous Lord Wind release. It also sounds like there might be new layers of guitar as well, but that might just be the clearer production bringing out stuff that was obscured in the original release. This re-recording was outstanding enough to convince me to grab the remastered Creed of Iron.

Well, at Darken isn't destroying one of his good albums (by which I mean everything up to and including "Following the Voice of Blood") by re-recording it, like most bands who do the stupid re-recording thing do.